


A Family Movie Night, In Three Acts

by rosequartzstars



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Family, Family Bonding, Family Dynamics, Family Fluff, Movie Night, Oneshot, Ron loves Muggle romcoms, Television Watching, family life, granger-weasley, granger-weasley family - Freeform, granger-weasley family oneshot, rff 2020, romione fic fest 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:15:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25203832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosequartzstars/pseuds/rosequartzstars
Summary: Family movie night at the Granger-Weasley household always seems to be a competition of who’ll hold out the longest without falling asleep. Tonight, as always, Ron takes the crown.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	A Family Movie Night, In Three Acts

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the Romione Fic Fest 2020 on Tumblr for the prompt "couch". :)
> 
> The original is here: https://romioneficfest.tumblr.com/post/619008488603025408/a-family-movie-night-in-three-acts

**ACT I**

Rose is always the first to go. She's also always the one in charge of picking the movie, because she always promises that if she gets to pick it, she'll stay awake the whole time. This is much to Hugo's distaste, and though Ron often joins his son in a mock protest of Rose's "DVD-yranny" (Hugo's much too small to get the pun, but he'll love it when he does), he likes the Muggle rom-coms she picks. He thinks they're brilliant. He thought Heath Ledger in 1 _0 Things I Hate About You_ was _especially_ brilliant. He knows Hermione does too, but when he teased her about whether she'd finally found a suitable alternative to fancying Lockhart, he got firsthand evidence that Ginny had been teaching her the ways of a mean Bat-Bogey Hex.

Tonight's pick is _She's The Man_ —which Hermione says is an adaptation of a Shakespeare play, though Ron has no idea why she sounds so awed, because Hogwarts never gave him the slightest clue as to who that bloke is— and Rose, as always, has promised she'll stay awake. No such luck, thinks Ron as she watches her blinking slowly get heavier, a telltale sign that she's already fighting off sleep. With the TV lights flickering across her face, it's like watching a sports game: _and Granger-Weasley blinks... Folks, I think this is it, I think this may be when she nods off— aaaaand she's back in the game with a self-pinch on the arm for wakefulness! Ever the strategist! But –oh, what's that?— sleep is gaining ground again, and it's going straight for her, it's bowled her over, overrun her defenses— and it scores! That's 1-0 for sleep over Rose Granger-Weasley, folks!_

Well, now that the Muggle sportscasts that have been blasting on the Burrow's restored radio have become firmly lodged inside his head, he can confidently say that introducing his father to them was a mistake.

But it doesn't erase the fact that, like every Friday they huddle together on the couch, Rose has been the first to doze off again. As she curls to one side, emits the first little snore, and tucks her knees to her chest the way her mother does when she sleeps, Ron can tell she's out for the night, and thus we move to...

**ACT II**

Hugo loves it when Rose falls asleep first (which is to say, always) because it gives him an exhilarated excuse to pause the movie, hop off the couch, and stand triumphantly before his mum and dad announcing: "See? I'm a big boy! I'm still awake!" Ron doesn't have the heart to tell him about the off-chance that the owl-patterned onesie he's wearing may just be a disqualifying factor in the category of 'big boy'. It's not like he could tell him, anyway, because this victorious announcement always leads to him negotiating a later bedtime with his mother, because "big boys don't go to sleep at eight-thirty, mum"— an argument he invariably loses when she retorts, with a characteristically bossy remark from his wife (though adapted for the demands of motherhood), "well, this big boy _does_ , and he _will_ , because I say so."

Ron knows it best: when Hermione says so, it means you do it. So when Hugo, also invariably, turns to his dad for some support, he shrugs and says, "Sorry, pal. Don't worry, she makes me obey her too." And, also invariably, he earns a playful smack on the arm from Hermione, to which he indignantly retorts, "I never said I didn't like it!"

And so it plays out each Friday, a little play within a play, where the script never changes but neither does the little smile it elicits from Ron. And they sit in silence in front of the TV, watching Amanda Bynes put a tampon up her nose. Ron is convinced Hugo doesn't have the slightest clue as to what's going on in the movie, but he doesn't seem to care much: he beat his sister at staying awake again, and that's enough euphoria to carry him a day over.

But, like any good play, this play-within-a-play has a grand finale— which is also the same, week after week. There comes a point where Hugo grows tired, where his eyelids start drooping and his victory isn't enough to stop them from it. It's at that point that he grows quiet, he turns around, and he climbs into his mother's lap, wrapping his little arms around her neck and burying his face in the crook of her shoulder that seems tailor-made for him to rest his head on.

It's no time until Hermione looks at Ron out of the corner of her eye and smirks at him, like they're sharing the same old joke, and that's the signal that Hugo's gone too. His arms drop from around his mother's neck and she quickly tucks them into a comfortable position, adjusting to hold her baby, her Hugo, closer, knowing it'll feel like no time until he grows up and no longer seeks out his mother whenever he's sleepy.

Ron holds Hermione's gaze, smiling at his wife as she holds their sleeping son. The TV light bathes the couch, the family with two soldiers down already, their children cuddled —one against the couch's corner, the other one in his mother's arms— and breathing evenly with sleep. Ron wraps an arm around Hermione's shoulders and pulls her closer, and with only the two of them awake, the curtain reopens on...

**ACT III**

Ron remembers the first time they watched a movie together, when she decided to take him on a Muggle movie date. Ron doesn't think he's too much like his father, but when the theatre went dark and the film started rolling, his ecstatic fascination with the big white screen and the trailers now dancing across it made it evident that he took after Arthur more than he'd be willing to admit. "Hermione, you never told me Muggles had moving pictures too!" he shouted, clearly oblivious to the dozens of frowning heads turning to face him with a finger on their lips, because he'd never been to a movie theatre to know that you were supposed to shush.

(Arthur, of course, was over the moon when Ron told him all about it, and Hermione could've bet that when he shut himself in his shed later that afternoon, it was to try to charm some of the newspaper's social section into audibly chattering.)

Ron can't get enough of movies, but she thinks Hermione mostly bears them out with him because she likes seeing how much she enjoys them. She's not really the biggest fan of films, much preferring books or old records, and so she nestles under the crook of his arm and watches the movie more for his sake than hers. Not much time passes before she's yawning too, drawing Hugo closer to her and allowing her eyes to flirt with sleep, to slowly flutter closed and open again, toeing the line between awake and asleep.

Ron looks at her, drowsiness now evident across her face. She turns to look at him, and he anticipates the question even before she whispers it: "Can we turn it off, dear, and finish watching it tomorrow, please?" He knows this is a question more of courtesy than of intention, because they never _do_ finish watching it tomorrow. But he already knows this is a necessary part of the denouement to this play; he smiles to himself and, pressing a kiss to her forehead, nods. He presses the off button and the TV flashes to black.

Hermione kisses his cheek and leans back against the couch, falling asleep as soon as her head hits the cushion. So that does it: he's the last man standing. Weasley is king again, as he has been for all weekends since Rose suggested they sit down and watch _Notting Hill_. He, unlike Hugo, is a humble victor, and decides to save any gloating for tomorrow at breakfast, where he will argue that he deserves an extra pancake because he outlasted them all last night in the grand game of 'staying awake during family movie night'.

But that will be tomorrow. Tonight —before he half-drags Rose down the hallway to her bed and takes Hugo from Hermione's arms to tuck him into his own, before he takes Hermione by the hand into their bedroom and they crawl between the sheets, his body curving adoringly around hers as they've slept since that first time at Shell Cottage—, he'll take just one more moment to look around at the three people asleep on the couch around him. Rose, Hugo, Hermione: the three people he most loves in the world. And, just like every Friday, he thinks about just how lucky he is to have such a beautiful family, and wishes he could freeze that moment in time.

Slowly, he rises from the couch to do his dadly duties, and, just as slowly, the play concludes with a fall of the

 **CURTAIN**.


End file.
